Game Description******************Son of Nor is a PvE single- and co-op and PvP multiplayer game for up to 4 players (split-screen, LAN, internet) that experiments with various game mechanics. It has almost no UI, yet players have telekinetic powers, the ability to terraform, and multiple types of magic at their disposal. All powers have their individual tactical use and they can be combined to creatively prevent damage from or deal damage to enemies. For example, only basic magic can be invoked directly but basic spells interact with each other and can be combined to new, more powerful magical effects.

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Game Facts******************Genre: This is an action adventure with puzzle elements in a desert setting.Platforms: PC, Mac, and Linux.Release Date: March 31st, 2015. Get it on Steam.

@Udderdude: There won't be an inventory, there won't be any gear. We're still thinking about some kind of leveling to motivate players to master some skills and unlock new abilities. If everything was accessible from the beginning, wouldn't this be too boring? Maybe not, it then really comes down to skill and to a very good balancing.

@unsilentwill: I noticed a healthy skepticism here on TIGSource towards bigger projects. Which I think is good. And yes, we, too, had big plans for a lengthy RPG until we realized the content we would need to produce is just beyond. So I understand where this skepticism comes from. Probably many ambitious projects were started and then abandoned due to the fact people realized it's just impossible to finish. Especially towards people who want to make an MMORPG And as soon as you go 3D, it's amazing by how much it increases the effort. That's why we limited the scope to an arena PVP game first. We can keep the content down this way

We're currently ramping up our online presence and want to give updates on a more regular basis (I added a new Facebook page and our Twitter account to the main post). We hope you like what you see and you'll find following this project worthwhile.

Our main programmer Julian was quite busy implementing the death beam, another NOR-type spell, and all its interactions / combinations with other spells. The death beam is one of the 6 spell beams available in the game. I haven't really talked about the beams extensively yet. I'll try to do this sometime later.

There are two versions of the death beam. Have a look at the original one:

And then an alternative visual style after some internal discussions.

Which one do you like more? There seems to be quite some debate internally.

Like more the second one, as it feels more "3d", the 1st one looks better on a screenshot, but it's harder to evaluate its position.The trap effect is a bit strange, very long, that makes it less beautiful.And about secondary effects at the end of the video, I don't understand what it does with fire.

The random purple rays are only visual ? Even if it's quite beautiful, the player may want to avoid these, when it's useless... Maybe make them less precise, more fuzzy ? So the player don't think it's a threat ?

OP: I saw your game a few days back and thought it was hugely ambitious and at the same time very interesting. Granted your re-direct towards a MOBA is a shame, but I totally understand it.

I saw you respond to Udderdude by saying “If everything was accessible from the beginning, wouldn’t this be too boring?” My response is no. I am a huge PvP, MMORPG gamer and levelling up to reach the good stuff is a painful and unnecessary time sink.

I’d like to see a system that reduced the importance of remembering skill gestures the more you use them, for example unlocking a skills key bind after XXXXX damage is done. Apart from that keep it gearless and without varying ranks of skills.

I look forward to seeing where this project goes. Excellent stuff so far though.

Thank you folks, this is great feedback. You know how it is. Sometimes your head is stuck so deep in calculations, spells, interactions and hopefully cool features that you can't decide what would be best for players that just want to play and have fun. You just lose sight of it because you know too much and you have gone through too many iterations to objectively judge. This kind of fresh-eyed-insight helps.

As an anectode, this is probably the third major iteration of the magic system. It was always the plan of not having buttons to invoke spells. But we previously thought we should put the spell combination system in some kind of editor. So before you started playing, you created your combinations upfront in an editor and map it to a limited number of spell slots. You could not change these spells later, so you had to plan in advance, but had access to the combined spells quicker as a result. But we ended up with so many spells and combinations that it would have been impossible to prepare in advance and, in consequence, if you had prepared the wrong spells and counter-spells, a game would be no fun at all. So we killed the whole editor idea, changed some mechanics significantly, and now you can basically build your spell combinations right in the game. The more players you are, the quicker it works. As everybody can interact with every spell. You create a tornado, while your fellow players strengthen it, and turn it into a fire tornado at the same time. Enemy players could sabotage your spell, though, so if you're preparing a big blast, you better don't do it in an open area but hide behind rocks or so. We'll see how this works out

We're having a Skype conf call this evening, let's see what comes out of it. Thanks again. Speak to you later.

Some updates from today's conf call. Julian made new versions of the death sphere and death trap. It's not going to be the final version though, there were several comments to improve the look and feel.

To answer your question, peous, the rays coming out of the spheres are the main damage dealing effect, so it's not only a visual gimmick. They're pretty random in the video though, we just discussed the rays should be attracted by the player who set off the trap. I guess there'll be an update soon, stay tuned.

You can also see a new effect of the death beam we just implemented. It's currently called "Life Hunter". Upon invokation, it locks on to an enemy target and follows it until it deals some damage (or gets blocked). Then it randomly locks on to a new target (which might be a friendly player or even the caster itself). It can be stopped with an appropriate shield, though.

These are the first incarnations of death spell visuals and it's still a huge construction site. The proper effects, the balancing, the damage it deals, the speed at which the Life Hunter moves and so on are not yet implemented or defined, so this is pretty much experimental stuff!

I'm not very familiar with Guild Wars. I played it years ago but didn't even reach (what was it? Level 20?). So my experience with it is very limited. Are you saying we're doing something similar Guild Wars did years ago without us even knowing about it?

UPDATE: I just found this site which I think lists Guild Wars spells? http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Category:SpellsWow, quite a list! Can't vouch for not having any similarities at all. Might be there are some overlappings, though none were intended. Thanks for the hint, though.

During our second to last development meeting where we sketched out some of the first maps you'll see in the game, we were also thinking about additional gameplay elements.

The sand dragon you see below is not a spell but a living creature inhabiting the world. And it's hungry (at least that's our idea). Instead of just battling other players on a map, on some maps, you'll find these sand dragons that might just have picked you as its next lunch package. So you need to watch out and hide early enough (there will probably be some kind of signal that it emerges from the sand before it does, some rumbling and some visual indication). With things like these we're trying to bring more variety to the gameplay and make the world feel more alive.

We currently only have this drawing our concept artist Arnold Richter did this week to visualize the idea. We haven't scheduled the implementation yet or the way it appears and what exactly it does. I'm sure we'll make a short clip once it's implemented.